Philosophy, the Maligned

[hammegk]

Your accusation was one of assuming Materialism was true.

You are wrong. My assertion is that proof of Materialism=True is impossible. Of course only fools would so bluntly state their case in that fashion. The proponents do not appear to be fools, and do their best to hide that message.

Again, either back up your assertion with quotes or withdraw.

And if I do neither?

 

[Darth Rotor]

Of course, but the possibility of moving beyond the boundaries is a necessary prerequisite of expanding the scope of inquiry, and philosophy is mere religion if the scope of inquiry is hogtied by mere affirmation. So, yes working within boundaries is essential, but being able to move beyond them is essential as well. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express this.

Well put. Once a set of boundaries is well understood, I take it that an effort to stretch the boundaries is in order, if only to explore the art of the possible. Sometimes, significant benefit accrues when so exploring.

Am I following you here?

Hmmm. I've read the Critique of Pure Reason, but I must admit, I can't quote it verbatim. Big book! BIG BOOK!!

Me either, in terms of quoting verbatim. That's a hard, hard, book for those who are not deep into philosophy. (People like me.) Hegel wasn't as hard going for me. I admit I was frequently lost, with Kant, and often had to ask for assistance.

If you would be so kind as to provide a more precise reference, it would be helpful.

It's been over ten years. With help, and only with help, I was able to grasp that Kant found a chicken and egg tension between morality and reason. Reason only takes us so far, in appliciability. Morality is meant to deal with actual decisions, not solelyl abstractions.

I don't think I am good enough at philosophy as an artform to go beyond that. It was always something hard for me, and studied / considered in my spare time.

Back to your OP, I have found IRL that philosophy and idealism run time and again into both uncertainty and imperfection in practice. (In particular, political philosophy.) The disciplined aspect of philosophy, which you referred to earlier, to be of practical use, needs a measure of applicability (be it modest or profound) or its practice as mental exercise does what you so cleanly pointed to in the OP: contribute to its own detriment.

Looks like another circular problem. They show up all over the place.

This smashing face first into applying of reason to life seems a reflection of the problem Kant wrestled with, on a far more complex level than I am able to do with any lucidity. I will defer to better students of those amazing Germans of the Enlightenment for any more on Kant. My take away was: reason hits the wall, but life goes on.

It might even show me how to...

"Win Powerball!!!"

Not bloody likely. That is in the hands of Providence, and we aren't discussing Boethius.

DR

 

[six7s]

Ironically for those making a joke about expressing formal logic as computer code, it is formal logic that provided the basis for mid and high level computer languages in the first place

I have a hunch that those "making a joke" via pseudo-code do have a reasonable grasp of the underlying structures of machine, assembly and high level languages

So while you might consider formal logic to be navel gazing and endlessly waffling and so on...

Yeah... I might... but I don't

I consider formal logic to be formal logic

I consider navel gazing to be navel gazing

I consider endless waffle to be endless waffle

I consider philosophy to be the 'love of knowledge, wisdom'​

All four (and a whole bunch more) can be applied in varying degrees to produce nⁿ levels of effectiveness and efficiency

I think it is pretty useful that I am able to get into a jet plane and fly half way around the word in a really short time.

You're not alone

Back here on the ground, I'll aim to avoid using Denverian logic, the sort that loses your luggage

 

[athon]

You are wrong. My assertion is that proof of Materialism=True is impossible. Of course only fools would so bluntly state their case in that fashion. The proponents do not appear to be fools, and do their best to hide that message.

There are two ways people use the word proof; one is as a synonym for 'evidence', the other as 'conclusive'. The former is how most people use it, especially in science. I try to avoid it, as proof is more of a math word than a science one, however colloquially it remains in use.

Materialism itself is a model - it relies on the assumption of parsimony; the explanations for all events are as simple as they need to be to account for all observations with fewest assumptions.

So, it cannot be 'proven', as it relies on a single assumption, like any model. Like the assumption of universal symmetry, they are the only two assumptions we're allowed to have in any model.

However, to even begin to discuss other, non materialistic models, you're no longer seeing the point of a model. Models have to be as useful as possible to describe reality. This means they have to be as simple as possible while still using all observations while avoiding more assumptions. Non-materialistic philosophies break this, therefore aren't useful in the slightest.

There is no way of ever having certainty in a model being an accurate representation of anything. We describe reality that way as it is useless and meaningless to even follow the possibility that reality might not be.

Athon

 

[PixyMisa]

Statements and words carry connotations. The materialists are very careful with their actual words, yet cannot control what those words suggest.

"What those words suggest"? You wrote:

Got your circuit working yet? You can also chat with it about Dennett who offers just the same stale old pap. 1. Assume Materialism=True. 2. blah.blah.blah. 3. Declare that Proved Materialism=True.

So, once again: Where have I, or Dennett, or anyone else said that?

Your refusal to back up your assertions has already established that God is cheese, so I'm interested to see where you go with this one.

 

[value_relevance]

People spend their whole lives looking for truth. Then they die.
Why look for truth?
10 points for spotting the irony.

 

[dglas]

People spend their whole lives looking for truth. Then they die.
Why look for truth?
10 points for spotting the irony.

Oh! Oh!
I know! I know.....


Win Powerball!!!!

 

[athon]

You are wrong. My assertion is that proof of Materialism=True is impossible. Of course only fools would so bluntly state their case in that fashion. The proponents do not appear to be fools, and do their best to hide that message.


And if I do neither?

Ah, alas. Hammy in a mask. Hindsight provides all of us with 20-20 vision.

Athon

 

[Explorer]

So which school do you belong to?:

"Schools of philosophical skepticism

Philosophical skepticism begins with the claim that the skeptic currently does not have knowledge. Some adherents maintain that knowledge is, in theory, possible. It could be argued that Socrates held that view. He appears to have thought that if people continue to ask questions they might eventually come to have knowledge; but that they did not have it yet. Some skeptics have gone further and claimed that true knowledge is impossible, for example the Academic school in Ancient Greece after the time of Carneades. A third skeptical approach would be neither to accept nor reject the possibility of knowledge.

Skepticism can be either about everything or about particular areas. A 'global' skeptic argues that he does not absolutely know anything to be either true or false. Academic global skepticism has great difficulty in supporting this claim while maintaining philosophical rigor, since it seems to require that nothing can be known — except for the knowledge that nothing can be known.

Some global skeptics avoid this problem by maintaining that they merely are 'reasonably certain' (or 'believe') that skepticism is true, while never asserting that skepticism itself is 'known' to be true with absolute certainty. For such skeptics, while an argument may be advanced in support of skepticism, the argument does not conclude or imply that it (the argument itself) is indubitable. A self-referential version (holding that skepticism is subject to skepticism) is consistent with its own tenets, although it concedes that skepticism can never be 'proven'.

A Pyrrhonian global skeptic labors under no such constraint, since he only claims that he, personally, does not know anything and makes no statement about the possibility of knowledge.

Local skeptics deny that people do or can have knowledge of a particular area. They may be skeptical about the possibility of one form of knowledge without doubting other forms. Different kinds of local skepticism may emerge, depending on the area. A person may doubt the truth value of different types of journalism, for example, depending on the types of media they trust." (source Wikipaedia)

Confused? You should be! But I'm still listening, surprisingly.

 

[westprog]

But I don't think I'm discussing something that is about to reach a definitive conclusion about the way the world is.

That's one of the most sensible statements on this thread.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

If religion is not philosophy, why is it that every philosophical discussion with major societal impact has religions at the table? Why does religion get a place at the table when discussing stem cell research, abortion, cloning . . .?

Because to a significant extent we're still a pack of superstitious peasants, and it's politically necessary to have the tribe's witch doctor show up and blatter on about what the Great Spirit wants before we can make decisions.

Yes, it's pretty sad that even in the supposedly enlightened First World we haven't gotten over this.

 

[dglas]

So which school do you belong to?:

"Schools of philosophical skepticism

Philosophical skepticism begins with the claim that the skeptic currently does not have knowledge. Some adherents maintain that knowledge is, in theory, possible. It could be argued that Socrates held that view. He appears to have thought that if people continue to ask questions they might eventually come to have knowledge; but that they did not have it yet. Some skeptics have gone further and claimed that true knowledge is impossible, for example the Academic school in Ancient Greece after the time of Carneades. A third skeptical approach would be neither to accept nor reject the possibility of knowledge.

Skepticism can be either about everything or about particular areas. A 'global' skeptic argues that he does not absolutely know anything to be either true or false. Academic global skepticism has great difficulty in supporting this claim while maintaining philosophical rigor, since it seems to require that nothing can be known — except for the knowledge that nothing can be known.

Some global skeptics avoid this problem by maintaining that they merely are 'reasonably certain' (or 'believe') that skepticism is true, while never asserting that skepticism itself is 'known' to be true with absolute certainty. For such skeptics, while an argument may be advanced in support of skepticism, the argument does not conclude or imply that it (the argument itself) is indubitable. A self-referential version (holding that skepticism is subject to skepticism) is consistent with its own tenets, although it concedes that skepticism can never be 'proven'.

A Pyrrhonian global skeptic labors under no such constraint, since he only claims that he, personally, does not know anything and makes no statement about the possibility of knowledge.

Local skeptics deny that people do or can have knowledge of a particular area. They may be skeptical about the possibility of one form of knowledge without doubting other forms. Different kinds of local skepticism may emerge, depending on the area. A person may doubt the truth value of different types of journalism, for example, depending on the types of media they trust." (source Wikipaedia)

Confused? You should be! But I'm still listening, surprisingly.

Is this like picking a Dungeons and Dragons alignment?

I pick Self-Referential - Global. But, I do not confuse doubt with denial.

I also pick Neutral-Good. Of course, sometimes, I have been known to pick "Unaligned."

 

[Limbo]

Mysticism seized control over rational thought mellennia ago and has only recently begun to see its control slipping.

Perhaps you mean "dogma" seized control? "Mysticism" is something else, philosophically speaking.

Mysticism is the pursuit of achieving communion, identity with, or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight.

And it's these insights which lead to philosophies being developed. Philosophy is born from mystical experience. That's why so many of our greatest philosophers have been mystics or sympathetic to mysticism...

Note the difference between mysticism in a philosophical sense and in mysticism in a new-age/religious/pop-culture sense:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mysticism/

 

[dglas]

Perhaps you mean "dogma" seized control? "Mysticism" is something else, philosophically speaking.

I think I meant mysticism. However, now that you mention it, I might include dogma as well. Of course, dogmatic mysticism is the best of all possible worlds.

Mysticism is the pursuit of achieving communion, identity with, or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight.

Why don't we try to establish the veracity of the experiences, if in fact they actually occur, before we start making a pursuit of them...
We must do two things here, if we wish to proceed with the "pursuit."
(1) Establish that the experiences referred to do, in fact, occur, and
(2) Establish that these experiences have anything to do with anything "mystical."

And it's these insights which lead to philosophies being developed. Philosophy is born from mystical experience. That's why so many of our greatest philosophers have been mystics or sympathetic to mysticism...

Philosophy is born of mystical experience? That's quite the claim. Care to back that up? If philosophy is born of mystical experience, why are you hedging by saying "so many of our greatest philosophers" instead of saying "all of our philosophers" here?

Some, even many, philosophies may have been born of mysticism, but some have been born of deciding that candle light stories are just that - candle light stories.

Now "greatest" is an evaluative term. Care to define for us what it is that makes a given philosopher "great" as you use it here? Perhaps your use of the word "greatest" here is an affirming of the consequent? Perhaps you are stipulating that "greatness" is a function of being mystically-oriented?

Note the difference between mysticism in a philosophical sense and in mysticism in a new-age/religious/pop-culture sense:

The difference as depicted in this writing:

"A (purportedly) super sense-perceptual or sub sense-perceptual experience granting acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of sense perception, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection.

A (purportedly) super sense-perceptual or sub sense-perceptual unitive experience granting acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of sense-perception, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection."

As far as I can tell, the only difference I can see between these two stipulations is the word "unitive" (a descriptor applied to the word "experience"), both of which rely on the veracity of non sense-experience - a veracity far from established, perhaps far from establishable.

So, with these broad and narrow senses of the word in mind, I find myself with one question: "And your point is..?"

Or were you referring to something else with "new-age/religious/pop-culture sense" above? If so, precisely to what do you refer? And why do you assume I am not referring to the philosophical sense of the term "mysticism?"

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mysticism/

Thanks for the link. I found it ... entertaining.

It might serve one well to read some of the critiques provided in the article itself about the veracity of perceptions of mystical properties, qualities or states. When it comes down to it, much of skepticism traditionally has its basis in the unreliability of individual experience and the epistemic barrier between the purported "knower and the [purportedly] known." Many, if not most, of the tropes, revolve around this central theme. A theme, I find reinforced every time I look above the rim of my glasses (it would seem foolish of me to assume that the whole world changes because I am looking through plastic at one moment and not looking through plastic the next.

The word "purported," and variants thereof, make a brief appearance at the beginning of the article - if one applies the word "purported" rigorously throughout the article, much of the fog clears away and the various speculations about mystical "experiences" seem to be intricate elaborations on a fiction.